Waterloo group pushing for OHL club

WATERLOO — Frank Leahy looks at the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex and sees the future home of an Ontario Hockey League team.

He sees 200 new jobs for Waterloo.

He sees a major junior hockey club skating in Waterloo’s trademark black-and-gold.

The 49-year-old violin virtuoso isn’t fiddling around as he chases his OHL vision for a proud city struggling to maintain its hockey identity in the shadow of Kitchener and the dominant OHL Rangers.

“The dream is becoming closer to reality,” said Leahy, a father of seven with six kids in Waterloo minor hockey.

Two years into the struggle, Leahy’s dream team is revealed.

His potential OHL ownership group includes Waterloo investors Rob Filiatrault and Dave Libertini, as well as former Guelph Storm president Jim Rooney.

Rooney spent a decade as the OHL’s chair of the board.

If anyone is qualified to help Leahy’s team manoeuvre through the man obstacles to landing a team for Waterloo, Rooney is the expert.

After a dozen years on the OHL executive, he knows how the 20-team loop works. He knows how to work with OHL commissioner Dave Branch, who must be kept informed on all matters. Rooney said members of Leahy’s group met with Branch as recently as December.

Can the Waterloo OHL dream become reality?

“It’s not without its challenges,” Rooney said.

Some of those challenges appear to have been overcome.

The group is confident it can purchase a current OHL team for relocation. The price would likely be $5 million to $7 million for a club they refuse to name.

The OHL, according to Branch, is not looking to expand.

The 3,500-seat Rec Complex could be updated for $2 to 3 million to accommodate 4,000 people with new private boxes. Leahy, who is also a Canadian fiddle champion, says his group would pay for the entire upgrade with no cost to the taxpayer. Plus, they already have a tentative five-year lease for an OHL team to play in the city-owned facility. A parking study is included.

The city of Waterloo seems gung-ho for an OHL team with a hotel going up near the Rec Complex and nearby uptown restaurants hungry for customers.

“I am 100 per cent behind this proposal,” said Ward 7 Coun. Melissa Durrell, where the Rec Complex is located.

“Four-thousand people coming into Uptown Waterloo every Friday night is great for business. It’s great for the city of Waterloo. Obviously, the biggest stumbling block right now are the Kitchener Rangers.”

The Rangers and nearby Storm hold OHL territorial rights over the area. They could veto any OHL operation in Waterloo, just six kilometres from the Aud and 30 km from Guelph’s Sleeman Centre. But the Rangers may have the greatest reluctance to welcome a Waterloo team into their fan-base backyard.

Is that a deal-breaker? Or would the Rangers relax their veto?

“The fact they did it for us here in Guelph 20 years ago suggests that all things are possible if it’s done right,” said Rooney, recalling how the Dukes of Hamilton got Rangers approval to become the Storm in 1991.

But the Rangers had yet to hit their manic marketing stride back then.

Today, the Rangers fill their 6,200-seat Aud beyond capacity on most nights. The demand for tickets is greater than the supply.

The Waterloo group argues their city is full of junior hockey fans starving for tickets that don’t yet exist.

The Rangers want a bigger building. They want to borrow $44 million from the City of Kitchener to expand their 60-year-old Aud by 3,500 seats.

A Waterloo team might jeopardize their bid to land that loan.

The Rangers are also heavily involved in a proposed merger of elite bantam and midget minor hockey teams from the two cities.

The K-W Rangers and K-W Wolves triple-A teams would be funded by the Rangers, who would also pick coaches and manage four combined teams ages 13-17.

Waterloo kids would play in Kitchener. Kitchener kids would play in Waterloo, if approved. A Rangers patch would appear on the black-and-gold jerseys of Waterloo teams. The Rangers are marking their territory and Waterloo is part of it.

“We are watching with great interest,” Filiatrault said of the controversial amalgamation plan, which could affect Waterloo’s chances for an OHL club, if approved.

The new Waterloo team would want to do all it can to support minor hockey in town.

But first, the Rangers must be convinced that a Waterloo OHL rival on the ice — plus at the box office and merchandise racks — would be good for business on East Ave.

“No one has ever convinced me so far,” Rangers chief operating officer Steve Bienkowski said on Thursday when reached on a trip to Halifax.

“There have been claims for two years that it could somehow make sense. But I’ve never seen anything presented to me that does make sense.”

Bienkowski met with Rooney and others over the last 18 months to talk in general terms about the Waterloo bid. The Storm present another potential obstacle.

Storm governor Rick Gaetz did not return a call from The Record on Thursday.

Rooney has strong ties to Guelph and perhaps the Storm could be swayed.

But the Rangers look steadfastly opposed.

“I’m hoping that, in the end, Steve Bienkowski and the Rangers are going to look at this and say that this is great for Waterloo. This is great for Kitchener. Can you imagine the rivalries? Look at Ottawa and Montreal. Look at Ottawa and Toronto. That could be good for our city,” Durrell said.

“I know it’s a business thing for the Rangers. It’s a hard one to fight.”

Durrell insists Waterloo, where residents rejected even talking amalgamation with Kitchener, has its own identity. Leahy’s group says Waterloo has the highest per capita registration in minor hockey of anywhere in Ontario.

“We’re our own city,” said Durrell, who hopes other OHL clubs will pressure the Rangers into allowing a team in Waterloo. “An OHL team in Waterloo makes sense.”

Perhaps, with a vote on the Rangers-driven minor hockey merger plan looming in Waterloo, there is little time to waste.

“We’re as anxious to get this thing here for next year as anybody else,” Leahy said.

The former Elmira Sugar Kings and University of Guelph player feels the hockey passion and history in Waterloo.

Leahy’s wife Lisa, a former Olympic field hockey player, is from Waterloo’s wealthy Bauer clan. Her dad Ray played for the K-W Dutchmen team that beat Denmark 47-0 at the 1949 worlds. Her uncle was Father David Bauer. Another uncle, Bobby, played on the NHL’s famous Kraut Line with Milt Schmidt and Woody Dumart. The trio wore black-and-gold with the Boston Bruins in the 1930s and 40s.

Leahy respects the Rangers’ legacy of success over 48 years. He sees them as a model OHL franchise. He just thinks its Waterloo’s time for its own OHL team, one he aims to let the public name in a contest.

But what will Leahy do if next fall arrives and no OHL club setting up on Father David Bauer Drive? Will he pack up his dreams?